Making A Wish Come True In Nn

Girl Granted Chance For A Shopping Spree

July 12, 1999|By DEBORAH STRASZHEIM Daily Press

There's something about seeing a chauffeur help a 10-year-old into a white limousine outside a McDonalds that makes people turn their heads.

They figure maybe she's won something; then they see Christina Wilson's T-shirt that says "Fulfill a wish" and they realize she's been terribly ill. They smile at the girl and her parents and look thoughtful, like they want her to be all right.

Christina, of Newport News, got her three wishes Sunday through the Fulfill a Wish program based in Florida, which grants wishes to children with cirtical or terminal illnesses. Christina had a brain tumor, but it is now gone, and her parents pray it will stay gone forever.

For her wishes, Christina wanted three things: a VCR, a Nintendo 64 and a shopping spree at Toys R Us. She started at 9 a.m. She took a limousine to Kmart and bought a VCR for her room, then rode to Toys R Us and spent $720 on gifts that included her Nintendo system.

For her shopping spree, the foundation gave her $650, the store gave her $50, and her parents pitched in the extra $20 when she went over budget.

She rode motorized cars through the aisles, bought a student guitar, and lingered in the Barbie aisle trying to decide what to get. She went with the remote control Ford Explorer and the blue convertible, plus a few other items.

"It's great," she said of the trip, filling her second cart with toys. Mostly she was quiet, intent on figuring out what she wanted. She had a list with her, but changed her mind on a few things.

The store employees brought her balloons, her 13-year-old brother Keith offered advice, and her mother gently suggested that she try to make up her mind.

Christina goes into fifth grade at Deer Park school this year. Her favorite color is blue, like her eyes, and her brown hair is bobbed at about her shoulders. She wants to get married someday and have children. "At least two," she says, and she wants to stay home like her mom. Her dad works third shift at Newport News Shipbuilding.

Her parents said they are happy to see her having fun. "It's a blessing because of all that she's been through," her mother, Lori Wilson, said.

Lori and Jeff Wilson didn't know their daughter was sick. In first grade, Christina couldn't hop, skip and jump like other children; she'd lose her balance in physical education class. But she was otherwise healthy and always had been, so her mother never suspected something was really wrong.

Then one day, Christina came home with juice spilled on her shirt, and her mother asked what had happened. Christina said she couldn't hold the juice. Her mother handed Christina a glass of water, and it trembled in her hand.

The doctors discovered she had a brain tumor the size of a peach in the back of her head. They had to operate. "It was terrible," Lori Wilson said. "I wanted to cry all the way to the hospital, but I had to hold it in because she was there with me."

Christina was afraid of being in an operating room without her mother. Lori Wilson put on scrubs and stayed with Christina until she fell asleep under the anestetic.

Then she walked outside and sobbed. "I just lost it," she said. "I needed to cry." Seven hours later, Christina's surgery was done, and the doctor gave the family good news. It had gone well. "We were relieved," Lori Wilson said.

Christina was recovering from the surgery when she turned to her mother and asked, "When am I going to have my operation?" Her parents took turns being with her. Sometimes, Christina would call for her mother, but she would fall asleep before Lori Wilson could get there.

Christina had to learn to walk again and she did, but still it was not over. Three months later, the doctors found a pea-sized growth in her head. They figured it might be scar tissue, and they looked again in three months. There were two pea-sized objects. Surgery was no longer an option. There was too much risk they would do more harm than good.

For the next year and a half, Christina underwent chemotherapy. She did not lose her hair, but she got sick, at times very ill, until her blood vessels burst in her face as if she'd been punched. Despite the treatment, she continued to go to school.

Two summers ago, the Make a Wish Foundation, which arranges last wishes for children, brought the Wilsons to Disney World.

Lori Wilson held onto hope. Another parent, whose son had been sick, told Lori, "God is not going to take your little girl." Somehow, she believed it.

Chemotherapy ended in September. The doctors now say they see no more tumors. Christina's next check is Tuesday. Lori said Christina would just as soon not make a big deal out of the fact that she was sick. If people do not know, she does not tell them.

In the limousine, she talks of typical girl things. She has three boyfriends (whose names she does not want in the newspaper). She is constantly hungry, has been to sleep-away camp and has not decided yet whether or not to get her ears pierced, Lori Wilson says.